DNA Barcoding

In August, the international food safety journal Food Control released a study about tampering within the Canadian sausage industry. Commissioned by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, the University of Guelph researchers conducting the study found that one in five sausages sold in Canada are adulterated – they contain meat that was not advertised on the package. Some sausages contained a mix of meats, such as pork that was cut with beef, while others were comprised entirely of a different kind of meat.

It was reminiscent of the 2013 European horse meat scandal, in which various European food inspection agencies began discovering processed meat products containing various amounts of horse. Some products contained only horsemeat. The scandal, which implicated most major food distributors in Western Europe, led to dozens of arrests and mass meat seizure in France.

There are many serious consequences of food fraud. In 1981, 600 people died in Spain after colza oil intended for industrial use was illegally refined and sold for human consumption. In 2008, 54,000 babies were hospitalized and six died during the Chinese milk scandal after infant formula was contaminated with melamine. Wine containing methanol killed 24 people in Italy in 1986. Additionally, people with dietary restrictions can be placed at risk even by otherwise harmless food.

“Food fraud is not a legal term…we are talking often about an intentional action,” says Dr. Aline Dimitri, Canada’s Deputy Chief Food Safety Officer who works at the CFIA. She says the majority of complaints turn out to be human error. Cases of intentional fraud persist though, and the CFIA does not regulate some of the most at-risk parts of the industry.

Researchers at Dalhousie University conducted a study in February which found that Canadians are becoming more concerned about the issue of food fraud. An online survey found that 63 per cent of Canadians are concerned about where their food comes from. More than forty percent believed they had already been victims of fraud.

“Probably a hundred per cent of Canadians have fallen victim [to] food fraud to a certain extent,” says the study’s lead researcher Dr. Sylvain Charlebois. Charlebois is the Dean of Faculty Management at Dalhousie, and a regular contributor to several news outlets. He is also one of the leading voices in Canada on food fraud.

“Food fraud has different ways of transpiring,” he says.  “It’s a major problem in the food industry.”

Food fraud is a broad term which refers to several illegal and unscrupulous practices within the food industry. Fraud can include products not containing what they claim, containing a modified version of what they claim, or taking advantage of legal loopholes and consumer assumptions to deliberately mislead customers.

Food fraud occurs because it is a simple way for some retailers to make more money easily. The problem is one of the oldest in human history, and as long as the benefits outweigh the risks, it will occur in some form.

Food fraud exists due to a combination of long supply chains for food and a lack of regulation and oversight. Most food goes all over the world through complex networks of producers, distributers, and retailers. Every time it changes hands creates increases the risk of fraud. Regulations often vary significantly within a single country, and internationally there is an even greater divide.

“The issue right now is that [fraud] is very easy for any unscrupulous actor anywhere in the very complicated supply chain,” says Julia Levin. Levin is part of the seafood fraud team at Oceana Canada, an ocean conservation and advocacy organization. Seafood is considered the area where fraud occurs most often.

Researchers have been developing various ways of combating food fraud. One emerging method is DNA barcoding, a way of using genetic markers to determine the species of different organisms. The technology is still relatively new, but is rapidly becoming one of the main tools in the fight against fraud.

“The US has included DNA barcoding in their regulatory toolkit,” says Levin, who stresses that American regulation of food is currently better than in Canada, though the EU leads the world.

New research into DNA barcoding is being spearheaded by researchers at the University of Guelph. “This is something that we started, the first real incidence of this in Canada,” says Amanda Naaum, member of the research team. She says the process has picked up in popularity due to its simplicity. “It’s very straightforward, which is why it has been adopted for use in this way.”

“They call it DNA barcoding because just like every bar code is unique, every DNA sequence is unique to the individual but also to a species level,” says Levin. The process works by comparing the genetic sequence of a sample taken from the field and comparing it to a data base with thousands of genetic sequences in it. There are specific genetic markers for different species that the researchers can identify, which can tell them whether the food they are testing is what it claims to be.

The Guelph team is the world leader of the International Barcode of Life (iBOL), a global database compiling the genetic information for every species on earth. Food fraud is one of the main drivers of iBOL, but it has applications in many other areas. iBOL has networks all over the world, and has catalogued around fifteen per cent of Earth’s biodiversity.

“We take the species identification that we got from the DNA barcode; we then look at the regulatory database to say, ‘in that regulatory database, does this species’ name match the market label that we bought the product with?” Amanda Naaum says. Based on many studies, the answer is often ‘no.’

Oceana recently conducted a study of seafood in Ottawa. They examined samples from ten grocery stores, 22 restaurants and twelve sushi restaurants specifically. Forty-five of the 98 samples were mislabelled, with substitution being the main issue they found. Sushi restaurants, as ever, were the worst offenders, with 68 per cent of samples being mislabelled.

DNA barcoding is still a new technology, and will take some time to become useful to consumers. Samples take a while to process, and process does not yet do a lot for processed food. The species has to be in the database, and the differences between some species are so small they can be very difficult to tell apart. And of course, DNA is only part of the story.

“[After sequencing] we then look at the regulatory database to say, ‘in that regulatory database, does this species’ name match the market label that we bought the product with?’” Says Naaum. So the process is only as good as the regulatory standards.

“The CFIA has what’s called a fish list; they have this list of 900 species that can be sold in Canada and what for each species,” says Levin. “There’s a list of acceptable market names. The problem with that list is that something like snapper can be two hundred different species. Something like rockfish can be even more…sole can be a hundred species.” The CFIA maintains lists like this for every product sold in Canada.

“There’s no universal reporting standard so it changes by province,” she adds. The provinces all have different standards, methods, and priorities, which can make tracing and regulating food products very difficult. The differences can change for every specific industry as well, “So halibut will be completely different from swordfish which will be completely different from sardines.”

“Genomics is the future,” says Dimitri. “[But] we have to have methodologies that are internationally recognized.” She says that if the CFIA tried to use experimental technology in court, it could be challenged as inadmissible.

It will be a while before DNA barcoding will be able to help consumers on a day-to-day basis. However, the experts say that there are other ways people can get involved in fixing the issue.

“The main thing that I tell people in this space is ask questions,” says Hanner. “If food service and retail establishments don’t think consumers care, then it’s not going to be a priority for them.”

“Ask questions,” agrees Charlebois. “Ask questions about procurement, ask questions about where the food is coming from,

“Industry right now, they maintain the position that customers don’t care, they don’t care about knowing the species, they don’t care about knowing how and where it comes from,” says Levin. “So the more folks are asking questions the more that perception will change and industry will change if they see consumer preferences changing.”

“You have to ask your retailer…’where does it come from?’” Says Dimitri. “It is a challenge for consumers to find the time to ask those questions, but it is important…“The more people ask, the more the industry is going to pay attention.” She also encourages people to reach out to the CFIA on their website if they’re suspicious of their food.

“Not only asking questions of food service and retail but asking questions of our MPs and government agencies,” adds Hanner. “Then again, just like the retailers, government isn’t probably going to do much unless they think it’s an issue to the people who vote them in and out of office.”